cause
deeply-rooted
inequality
Women from rural communities in Madhesh Province have little hope of accessing training :
- They leave school without the basic qualifications that they require to join courses.
- As their first language, they speak Maithili rather than Nepali which is the language of training courses.
- They enter child marriage and are trapped in domestic misery within a paternalistic environment.
- They lack Nepali citizenship which is an entry requirement to training courses.
- They face discrimination because of gender, caste or ethnicity.
- Lack of self-confidence and distrust of opportunities in a country where trafficking is common
endemic
sexual violence
OUR VISION
Our Vision is to see young women realising their full potential, irrespective of gender, ethnicity, caste or disability, becoming leaders within their families and communities. In October 2020, we funded the start-up costs of a new Kathmandu-based social enterprise called “Lily’s Leaves”. This has:
- Trained women from Madhesh Province in basic and advanced tailoring skills.
- Taught a group of young deaf women in silver jewellery techniques.
- Designed high quality goods for sale nationally and internationally
- Produced school rucksacks and dignity pads (reusable sanitary pads) for free distribution to the poorest schools in Madhesh Province.
- Helped Lily’s Leaves graduates to set up their own businesses after returning home.
key achievement
We funded the setup of a new Kathmandu-based social enterprise called “Lily’s Leaves”. The name is derived from its local Founder, the entrepreneur and business woman Mrs Lily Katuwal, and her plan to derive community incomes from forest products such as leaves, natural fibres and essential oils. This plan offered a direct overlap with our reforestation interests. Unfortunately, because of restrictions on movement due to COVID, this objective had to be postponed. Instead, Lily’s Leaves focussed on providing training in tailoring and silver jewellery to marginalised young women and deaf
young women respectively. The former activity involved six-month training in basic skills that was open to carefully selected candidates from within Kathmandu valley and from Madhesh Province. Because Madhesh Province is 8-10 hours’ drive from Kathmandu, these women were given residential training with all costs covered. Lily’s Leaves’ training is geared towards empowering through developing skills and confidence alongside providing employment opportunities. Graduates have produced school rucksacks, face masks, reusable sanitary pads (“dignity pads”) that
have been important in supporting our education programmes. Through Lily’s Leaves, we have been able to fund the continuing higher education of a child trafficking survivor who is entering her final year in a Bachelor’s of Social Work degree course. In 2022 we will aim to reduce costs by decentralising training so that beneficiaries from Madhesh Province can stay near to home while researching livelihoods based upon forest products. We will also move ahead with the postponed plans for utilisation of forest products
other projects
Ready ?
Test Your Knowledge in 2 minutes
Try out our new quiz about the Madheshi people in Nepal. Through those questions, we hope you will get a better understanding of the catastrophic situation they live in.
Take the quizHOW Pipal tree was born
a triumph over tragedy
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Registered charity number: 1159770
